If you came to this post because of the subtitle you probably thought it was impossible at first. But I have news for you: *it is possible*.

A few years ago I started with the idea of travelling and doing a volunteer job overseas. However when I started to look for an opportunity I realized it is quite expensive. In my country, Brazil, this kind of travel, if you choose to do with an agency, for example, costs roughly R$ 12.000 reais (around $ 5.500 dollars). I remember when I knew the price I felt that my dream to go abroad and do a volunteer job was destroyed.

The years passed and I already stopped think about volunteer job when I discovered a Brazilian startup called Worldpackers – The idea is awesome, this platform connects you with a hostel, farm or any place that needs volunteer people and in exchange they give you free accommodation and sometimes free meals. Of course, when I read about it the first thought I had was “I am not sure I can trust it. Maybe it is a trick”. However I was wrong and I was lucky because surfing on Facebook I realized that I had a friend works at Worldpackers! Yeah, sometimes the world is so small that it is scares us. Summing up, I went to the Worldpackers office, which is located in my city, Sao Paulo, and talked with all the staff.  Since then my idea to travel abroad and at the same time help some organizations doing volunteer jobs came to back on my mind.

After talking with all the team, looking for a country, a place and an organization, I decided to go to Thailand to teach Basic English to little kids who were around nine years old. I was in Thailand for two weeks and I can say with total certainty it was one of the best experiences I have had in my entire life. Besides saving money on accommodation and meals – yeah, I got all the meals free- with this opportunity I could learn more about a new culture with a native family.

I needed to work only three hours per day which meant even during the week I was able to enjoy and visit a lot of things around the city I spent almost nothing because as I said the volunteer job gave me all the stuff I needed.

If you love travelling but you do not have enough money to pay for everything it is an amazing idea. On the Worldpackers site you can find a job as a teacher, receptionist in a hostel, barman, farmer, video maker and etc. I mean, you do not have excuses not to do it.

Besides this website there are other options like:

*Couchsurfing *(Over than 400,000 hosts and more than 4 million surfers on this website):

It is a platform that is connecting people around the world. On one side you have a person that wants to open her house to receive a traveler for a determined period and in exchange this traveler should to teach some skills or cook something interesting or unique for the host.

*WWOOF:  *You can find a Volunteer job and do an exchange on organic farms in over 100 countries.

*HelpX: *The idea is similar to Worldpackers however this platform is older.

If you have the desire to travel and help someone + strength of will, these tips will help you a lot.

And believe me it is much easier than you imagined.

Debora Komukai, Upper-Intermediate